We have come full-circle. The end of America, may be at hand. How about the world? There’s a good chance Rena Easton and her rancher husband, know Scott Sales, who owns a cattle ranch 60 miles outside Bozeman. Does Scott get a Gov. check, too? He may fear the end of the Free Money, and is bribing our President.

Subsidies For ‘City Slickers’

Scott Faber of the Environmental Working Group, a left-leaning environmentalist organization that has been critical of farm subsidies, notes that more than 1,000 “city slickers” who live in major American cities get farm subsidies. It’s absurd.

All in all, the nearly $1 trillion a year spent on farm subsidies and food aid is a massive waste, given that farmers on average have higher incomes than those who are taxed to subsidize them.”

A Republican lawmaker in Montana is proposing to give more than $8 million to help build President Donald Trump‘s proposed wall on the Mexican border, while South Dakota senators voted Thursday to endorse the president’s plans.

As Trump traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border Thursday to make his case for $5.7 billion to build the wall in the government shutdown‘s 20th day, state lawmakers in some parts of Trump Country are backing him up with their own legislation.

Their efforts are mostly symbolic. The resolution passed in the South Dakota Senate simply urges construction of a steel barrier. The separate $8 million proposal in Montana would have little chance of getting past a Democratic governor who is exploring a run for president.

Scott Sales, a fiscally conservative Republican who leads the Montana Senate, says his proposal is a “small token” to show border security “is of vital interest to all citizens regardless of what state they live in.”

BUTTE — Some of the same Montana lawmakers who deride government spending and voted to reject millions of dollars in federal money have received thousands of dollars of federal agricultural subsidies for their farm and ranch operations.

That’s the message of a new report that lambastes state Republican lawmakers who have sharply criticized federal spending levels while accepting U.S. Department of Agriculture subsidies. The recent report by The Policy Institute in Helena titled “Profiles in Hypocrisy” notes that while lawmakers are saying they want nothing to do with federal programs or rules, they’ve benefited for well over a decade from programs paid for by the American taxpayer.

And many of those lawmakers have voted to cut funding for programs that help the poorest Montanans, including food, prescription drug and energy bill assistance, said Molly Severtson, executive director of the left-leaning institute.

Sales was born in Douglas, Wyoming, in 1960, and grew up near Boise, Idaho.[1] He graduated from Boise State University in 1982,[1] with a bachelor’s degree in industrial business.[2] He then worked for Hewlett-Packard and then a technology start-up, Extended Systems. Sales moved to Bozeman, Montana, in 1990, when Extended Systems established an office in the city. When the company was acquired by a California firm in 2001, Sales sold his stock in the company and remained in Bozeman.[1] As of 2007, Sales raised a small number of cattle and grew about 60 acres of hay near Bozeman, although he did not “consider himself a farmer or rancher.”[1] In 2012, his occupation was given in the Helena Independent Record as “private investor.”[2] As of 2016, Sales was “more or less retired.”[3]

Sales has been described as an “outspoken conservative”[4] and an “ultraconservative.”[5] At the time Sales was selected by his Republican colleagues in 2006 to serve as speaker of the House, the Billings Gazette described him as “easily one of the body’s most conservative members.”[6] He is a supporter of the Tea Party movement, favors budget cuts and tax cuts, supports “right-to-work” legislation, and expanded gun rights.[2] Sales praised Sarah Palin in 2009, saying: “I think she should be part of the discourse and part of the process.”[7] Sales criticized the Affordable Care Act and in the Montana Legislature voted against accepting the act’s Medicaid expansion, stating, “There is no constitutional guarantee to healthcare.”[8]

Gov. Steve Bullock said he respects Sales, but “I don’t know that he has ever strongly advocated for or supported infrastructure investments in Montana, so it’s a little bit of a puzzle for me why he would even consider spending taxpayer dollars on construction projects in California.”

Bullock, who said $8 million would go a long way to fund health care or infrastructure work in Montana, declined to say whether he’d veto the bill if it landed on his desk.

“Congress is basically dragging their heels over $5 billion, which is really trivial compared to what we spend on an annual basis,” Sales said Wednesday in explaining his funding proposal.

Sales said he calculated Montana’s “share” of the cost of the wall by dividing the state’s gross domestic product by the national GDP and multiplying it by $5.7 billion.

House Minority Leader Casey Schreiner, a Democrat, said the Legislature should focus its spending on Montana’s roads, building, water and sewer projects.

“That’s a lot of school roofs and boilers,” added Democratic Rep. Laurie Bishop.

Montana, where Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by 20 points, shares a 545-mile (877-kilometer) border with Canada, where there is no wall.

Sales also has sponsored a resolution that would ask Congress to act on the funding.

If the stalemate in Washington continues, the president said he’s willing to consider declaring a national emergency, which he says would allow him to direct the military to begin building the wall.

“What happens when (wheat prices) drops below $5 again and these guys are holding the bag because they’ve made decisions for their crop year?”

And Cummins also said the EWG’s numbers don’t paint the whole picture. He said family farms often grow larger by being conservative in good times and adding land to their operations.

“Does that suddenly make you a rich farmer or a farmer who had the smarts to put some money aside rather than buy that new combine?” he said. “You’re the same people; you’re just trying to be economically efficient and successful in your life’s work.”